Sitting cross-legged in Rihai's room, Aotian began practicing his Body Refinent technique.
The energy in his dantian began to flow, running through complex patterns in his roots, while their elental affinity stained the spiritual energy with their respective elents.
The minds of his avatars were already prepared, each one controlling an elent while drawing the patterns.
When his veins were filled with patterns and the energy of the five elents had reached equilibrium, the energy began to leave the roots and slowly seep into his flesh.
It was at that mont that his body began to spasm, and a sharp pain shot up to his head. It was like a violent toothache, with that stinging throb that made the tongue bitter — only worse. But Aotian didn't scream, not even furrowed his brows. After the pain of forming his roots, this small pain was nothing.
He didn't even open the connection to share the pain with his avatars, which would have practically nullified it, considering the number of powerful avatars he had now. No. As an authentic cultivator, he decided to endure the pain and accompany Rihai, who was also there, enduring it like the strong woman she was.
In his veins, the patterns pulsed slightly.
They were responsible for carefully and controlledly sending harmless energy that infiltrated each cell of the body, promoting small tamorphoses that slowly accumulated. At the sa ti, it placed a delicate protective layer over the roots, preventing the transforming flesh and cells from injuring them. The pain he felt ca from those cells that were rapidly tamorphosing.
He continued repeating the process of drawing patterns in his veins with the energy he had, while his body slowly strengthened. When the energy in his dantian ran out, he had to stop, remove the remaining patterns still charged in the roots, and refill the dantian before resuming the refinent.
In this way, a full day passed. When Aotian felt that his body had reached a certain limit, he trembled, with a great tamorphosis occurring completely within him. His muscles contracted, his cells vibrated, his hair stood on end.
Sweat dripped from his body, although there were no visible impurities. Even so, Aotian knew his body must have excreted microscopic impurities.
Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and imdiately looked at Rihai, instantly feeling his vision clearer.
She was still there, cultivating with her eyes closed. A small wave of heat emanated from her body, and her slightly furrowed brows made it clear she was feeling pain.
After watching her with so concern, he forced himself to look away. Cultivation was like that, and he couldn't beco overprotective because of a little pain — especially when it was for her own good.
He then looked at his hands and clenched his fists, amazed.
'Strange, even though I've completed only one tamorphosis cycle, which should be equivalent to the 1st level of Qi Refinent, I feel like my current physique is even stronger than before, when it was comparable to the 4th level of Qi Refinent. Well... these are synthesized techniques for you. Before, they were just martial arts, with a different focus, but now, compared to a real synthesized body refinent technique, they're completely different worlds.'
'It's interesting how physical strength is different from the strength provided by spiritual energy. Without refining the body, if a cultivator runs out of spiritual energy, they’re done. Now, with a strong physique, they can fight even without spiritual energy, like the beasts who barely use it in battle. In short, there are only benefits to refining the body, and the sum of one plus one can be greater than two.'
After examining a bit more, he stopped cultivating his body for now.
Not that he intended to take it slowly, but he wanted to let his avatars cultivate the body refinent a bit ahead of him, so that he could then gain the best experience while refining his own body.
So he planned to continue in two days. By then, his stronger avatars would already have made good progress with the technique, since with their powerful energy, it would be much faster than Aotian refining his own body.
Having decided, and with nothing else to do, he watched Rihai for a while longer before throwing a few elental stones around himself, closing his eyes, and cultivating his roots, keeping one mind attentive to any changes she might show.
Thus, ti slowly passed.
About a day later, Rihai finally opened her eyes, and there was a trace of joy and happiness in them.
She looked at Aotian and saw him open his eyes too, smiling at her.
Without saying anything, she ran and threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly, burying her face in his neck.
Aotian felt relieved to see the happiness in her eyes. That ant the technique had really helped her improve her strength.
He then wrapped one arm around her waist, while the other gently stroked her hair.
"How was it?" he asked after a while, allowing her to settle into the embrace.
She lifted her head from his neck and smiled affectionately, her eyes shining.
"Thank you, Tian'er. This technique is amazing. While I was cultivating, it protected my roots, and my own flesh is slowly organizing the small fragnts of roots and guiding them to the right place! The technique is fixing them!!" she said with joy and hope in her voice.
Aotian looked at her, shocked.
"What?! Really?!" His eyes widened, surprised, as he asked quickly.
He hadn't expected such effects.
Rihai quickly nodded.
Aotian suddenly grabbed her and hugged her tightly.
"That's incredible, Hai'er!!" He smiled brightly, stood up, and spun with her in his arms.
Rihai smiled in the embrace, being twirled around, happy to see hope — and to see Aotian so happy for her.
When he placed her on the ground, the soft smile on her lips trembled slightly, and she quickly wiped the corners of her eyes with her hands.
Aotian saw that and smiled tenderly.
"My beautiful Hai'er is crying?" he whispered gently, teasing her as he caressed her hair.
"I am not!" She quickly shook her head and finished wiping her eyes, forcing a smile onto her face.
But upon looking at Aotian's kind smile, standing there in front of her, her lips began to tremble, and the roof of her mouth turned bitter.
Her eyes reddened, and she quickly hugged him again, pressing her face against his chest and clinging to him tightly.
Aotian felt his chest grow wet and heard soft sniffles coming from her.
The smile on his lips vanished, and his eyes filled with sorrow at seeing his fierce and confident Hai'er in such a fragile state.
He resud gently caressing her blonde hair with care and affection, patting her back lightly with his other hand.
His heart felt tight. Anger couldn't help but grow inside him toward whoever had left her roots in that condition and caused her such trauma.
"Hai'er, I swear I'll make whoever did this to your roots pay." Impulsively, he couldn't help but say it, his heart burning with rage.
Rihai's sniffles stopped, and she slowly lifted her head from his chest, her eyes red and stained with tears.
She looked at him with an odd expression.
"Uh… Tian'er, the one who ssed up my roots was my father." she spoke, a bit of sha in her voice, as she wiped her tears with her sleeves.
Aotian froze when he heard that, looking at her, stunned and confused.
"Rihai… that… I…" he fumbled for words, completely caught off guard by the revelation.
"Well, it's not what you're thinking. It was to protect . It's complicated… I don't want to talk about it right now…" she said, sadness in her voice, and a bit of the joy from showing signs of recovery faded from her gaze.
'Ah! Crap! Damn it, Aotian! You and your big mouth!' he cursed himself internally upon seeing that, blaming himself for his impulsiveness.
"Ugh… Hai'er, I'm sorry…" he could only apologize.
"It's not your fault. You didn't know." She gently shook her head at him and laid her head back on his chest, her gaze slightly distant.
"Hai'er… how much of your root have you recovered?" Aotian asked, trying to change the subject and steer her away from those sad thoughts.
And it worked—sowhat—her eyes brightened slightly.
"Refining the body with scattered roots is much harder. I haven't reached the 1st level of Qi Refinent in body cultivation yet, but there are already so small fragnts coming together. If this progress continues, I imagine that by mastering this technique, I should recover about 10% of the integrity of my original roots," she pondered and explained, her voice slightly muffled against his chest.
"Ah?! Only that?" Once again caught off guard, Aotian furrowed his brows, expecting more—after all, her joy didn't seem fake.
She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him with a funny expression. Then, standing on her tiptoes, she cupped his ear with both hands, created a mini barrier, and said:
"Only that?! Tian'er, that's already a lot. With my root, even 10% isn't much different from a high-quality root—maybe even better. But don't tell anyone," she whispered, a serious tone in her voice.
That news left him staring at her in shock.
"You… you're not joking, are you?" he asked, hesitantly.
She just shook her head, seriousness in her eyes.
Aotian's eye couldn't help but twitch, imagining how powerful Rihai's root would be when fully restored.
"Pervert…"
"Hey!!"
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